The National's Bryce Dessner announces classical album with lead track "Emergency"

"Emergency" is the second taster of Dessner's classical album with the Australian String Quartet after May 2020's title-track "Impermanence". Dessner's upcoming album will also feature a string arrangement of ANOHNI‘s "Another World".

According to the Bandcamp description, the album is "heavily influenced by the searing impact of the wildfires that devastated Australia late in 2019".

The Grammy Award winning composer created the album for the Sydney Dance Company, who were due to premiere the on-stage performance featuring Dessner's score in March 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic forced events to cancel. The dancers rehearsed in isolation, while the Australian String Quartet recorded the compositions in lockdown, and now the Dance Company are performing it at Sydney’s Roslyn Packer Theatre Walsh Bay this month, before presenting it at the Adelaide Festival in March.

Rafael Bonachela, Artistic Director of Sydney Dance Company said, "It has been a real treat to conceive of this work together with Bryce Dessner and the Australian String Quartet – to explore the emotional drivers through both dance and music and to arrive at a place where the parts knit together so closely to make the whole. And ironically, to be able to shape Impermanence in response to such unexpected, but life-changing global events. For me, this encapsulates the incredible power of contemporary dance and music and how the response of the artist can truly resonate."

Tracklist:

1. Alarms
2. Disintegration
3. Alarms 2
4. Embers
5. Emergency
6. Impermanence
7. Pulsing
8. Requiem-Ashes
9. Another World (String Arrangement)